(1) Field of the Invention
The invention relates to digital content protection. More specifically, the invention relates to a secure booting mechanism for content protection.
(2) Background
Increasingly, content such as the video and audio of Hollywood movies is becoming available in digital form. Particularly with the proliferation of digital video disks (DVDs) every bit of data that makes up the/content is available for manipulation. Currently, industry groups and Hollywood are working together on a strong encryption that will protect the content from piracy. Even as the strong encryption is developed, efforts are being made to break the strong encryption.
Typically, the content, be it audio, video, or stills, might flow across a serial bus and into main memory. The serial bus may be an IEEE 1394 bus which is defined in the IEEE specification IEEE Standard for a High Performance Serial Bus, IEEE Std. 1394-1995 published Aug. 30, 1996 (1394-1995 Standard) or a subsequent revision thereof. Once the bits, even if encrypted, are stored in main memory, software executing on the processor can access those bits. The internet exacerbates the protection problem because it provides a vast network of processors which can all work to break the encryption. Even an unsophisticated user could download a favorite cracking program from the internet, then upload the results of their cracking effort and, over a relatively short period of time, the global network is likely to decrypt the content.
Instrumentalities of piracy can subject their manufacturers to huge potential liability. Here, since a personal computer (PC) can be used without modification to pirate digital content through a lawful activity (downloading from the internet), it is quite possible that PCs may be found by a court to be an instrumentality of piracy. Processor manufacturers will likely find it desirable to take steps to avoid this possible liability. To that end, products shipped should not enable piracy with a simple download.
An apparatus and method of providing content protection by secure booting is disclosed. A processor core is coupled to a certification unit. The certification unit certifying a BIOS stored in memory responsive to a start-up request.